Giuliani (Inadvertently) Defends Romney

More on Rudy’s ruminations, via a National Review interview with hizzoner about his 2012 prospects. Am I the only one who sees a tension between these two paragraphs?

Other potential 2012 hopefuls, Giuliani says, will need to be pressed on health care. “Mitt has to explain RomneyCare — that’s going to be a big issue for him.” Moving away from mandates, both state and federal, is crucial, he says.

“That’s the real danger of Obamacare,” Giuliani says. “You’re going to take it from a little state like Massachusetts, where you’re making those decisions for a few million people, and move it to a whole, big office building in Washington to decide what constitutes one’s health insurance.”

Okay, so Giuliani doesn’t like Romneycare–he apparently thinks all mandates are bad. But in transitioning to an attack on the Affordable Care Act, Rudy also articulates the central argument Romney makes in defense of his own plan: that it’s okay to create a universal-care plan at the state level, where you have a limited population and plenty of local control, as opposed to a huge system designed at the federal level. Check out this passage from Scherer’s fine new story:

Romney also repeated the claim he has made since as far back as 2007: there is a big difference between a state-level mandate to purchase health insurance and a national one, which he considers both unconstitutional and unwise. “A one-size-fits-all national health care system is bound to fail,” he said in August 2007 at a speech before the Florida Medical Association. “It ignores the very dramatic differences between states and relies on the Washington bureaucracy to manage.”